VF's "great" commission to noble savages

[rachelsmith1989]

Black Robe is an interesting 17th century perspective on basically the same thing, except with Catholics in Canada, and not evangelicals in the Amazon.

I have seen that film on the shelf of the college library I work at. I should give it a viewing since I'm might potentially live in Canada by the end of the year.

The film about it I always remember is End of the Spear... Mostly because the religious right made a big stink because one of the Evangelicals was portrayed by an openly gay actor.

Huh, now that you mention it, I kind of do remember all that hoopla although the complete story was probably highly censored to my precious fundie ears. I bet they didn't want that kind of info leaking out as the people who ran my church and my church's school (where I attended from 7th to 12th grade) used those films as both entertainment and biblical history/mission work propaganda.

[Vex]

I'm a physical anthropology student, more specifically a paeleoanthropology student. I can't comment on the 'noble savage' idea or the motives of cultural anthropologists, but I have to remark upon Doug's ignorance.

For one, Doug - like so many creationists - seems to think anthroplogists claim humans evolved from apes. This isn't true. The idea is that at one stage, humans and apes had a common ancestor from whom they evolved into two very different kinds of mammal. It's not nearly the same thing as evolving directly from apes. So, from the very start, his ideas are distorted by misunderstanding.

I don't understand how he can look at the fossil record of ancient humans and not understand that humans were not always Homo sapiens. What about Homo erectus? Are you going to just attribute that to different living conditions back then? Okay, then how do you explain Homo floresiensis? I suppose they were just little people? Let's go back a bit earlier. What is your explenation for the human ancestors that don't even fall into the Homo genus, like Australopithicus? Are they actually just highly evolved apes and biologists and anthropologists are just too stupid to realise, or are the many remains all fake?

I know at least one fundie (it might be Ken, of the Creation Museum) claims all fossils are carved from rocks by archaeologists, so I wouldn't be surprised if Doug subscribed to that theory too. Apparently every non-Creationist person in the world is involved in this conspiracy, because no independant and 'impartial' parties have ever thought to carbon date them to check the authenticity.

I say carbon dating, because it is apparently the only method of dating they know of - forget the fact that there are myriad other methods of dating (Potassium Argon dating is vastly more accurate for artefacts older than about 100-150,000 years old) and that scientists never rely on one method of dating alone - they will run many different dating tests and always use context. It's funny how carbon dating is the tool of the devil and totally unreliable - unless you want to use it to prove the age of a religious text, or to test a piece of the one true cross, or the wood that is surely from Noah's ark, or to date the Shroud of Turin.

I would really love to have him answer those questions, because I don't understand how someone can look at early hominin species and deny that they are our ancestors, and that we have evolved.

[mirele]

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes is a great account of a missionary's perspective on working in the Amazon. It got a lot of press a few years ago but basically, an idealistic young Moody-educated family moves to Brazil, the parents continue to study and become published academic linguists and then one of them loses his faith and becomes an atheist. It's part memoir, part psychological anthropology, part ethnolinguistics. One of the best books I've read in the last few years.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007 ... _colapinto

In the book, Everett doesn't dwell too much on the moral issue of being a missionary, but instead recognizes why some cultures would be less likely to convert.

Got to second this. The book has some interesting ideas in it and Everett's challenged some fairly basic tenets of linguistics. Definitely worth a read.

[mirele]

I agree. When brainsample said that she did missionary work, I read it as being works combined with preaching. Thus, when she talked about teaching children near a prison I would assume that meant handing out bibles and discussing Jesus with those families along with math and language classes. If there was no religious component, then wouldn't it simply be charitable/philanthropic work?

A good friend of mine was a Mormon missionary in Asia. A component of his mission was building homes and schools and working with local children. However, much of his time was spent meeting with local families and speaking to them about Mormonism and encouraging prayer and bible study. Both the speaking with local people and the good works were part of the overall goal of converting people to Christianity/LDS. Thats not to say that conversion was the only factor in doing those good works. I don't doubt that if not even a single person converted he would still be extremely satisfied and proud of those good works. However, in missionary work, as opposed to charitable work, religion and "spreading the word" to those foreigners is a significant factor in the trip and the good works being done.

One of my friends, who served a Mormon mission in Bolivia, went back as an anthropology student and wrote his master's thesis on why a whole Bolivian village up and converted to Mormonism. Turns out that it wasn't so much because they believed in Mormon doctrine, but because they got tangible social and pecuniary benefits out of it. As Mormons, they no longer participated in the Catholic feast day system, which required purchases of large amounts of alcohol with scarce cash monies, thus putting more money in their own pockets. Plus, the Mormon church built them a chapel and bought sewing machines for the women in the village. There's more to it, obviously, but I remember how terribly shocked I was reading it all these years ago.

ETA: He wrote his dissertation on how a group of Baptists managed to survive and thrive in a city dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where previous attempts to set up an indigenous group of Baptists failed.

[Brainsample]

I apologize for not anticipating that this was a even remotely a provocative topic. I learned that missionaries had to respectfully and creatively adapt to other cultures, and I never heard people being objectified in that context. I really had no clue that this was a controversy. I thought I was making a statement about how Phillips' Christianity expands via the womb instead of through evangelism.

I chose nursing as a profession over other options, in part, because I felt that it would lead to the discussion of deeper and more philosophical things, including faith, spirituality, and transcending suffering. I happen to do that through a Christian perspective, I would love for people to become Christians if that is what they want to do, and I'd be happy to be a part of that – isn't that true of anyone who believes in something? I don't think any less of anyone if they come to a different conclusion and hope to live in an atmosphere of peace and respect with everybody, much as that's possible. I discuss those very same things in the same ways everywhere in my daily life and it's why I participate here on FJ. I didn't behave any differently on a missions trip than I did anywhere else. For me, any charitable act is a spiritual act. Missions connotes for me the idea of going to another country. I just did what I do anyway in another country. I see that as more than a charitable effort.

I think that more than anything, such trips are a great encouragement to the people who live there and attend the churches we worked wtih. In the bigger cities, the missionaries had established small Bible Schools to train ministers there or for people who wanted to study. I always enjoyed working with students and other young people. I'd end up giving my extra clothes and anything I had with me to them because of the bonds I developed with them. I still have precious box full of precious little gifts from people I worked with all over the place -- people who were as moved by the experience of working together as I was. I really did go there to help them meet their own mission and the needs of the people they served. I don't know what other people do or how other groups work, but I don't see anything about what I did as wrong or an attempt to overtake a culture or as anything that is in any way condescending to people. Feel free to disagree.

[Brainsample]

One of my friends, who served a Mormon mission in Bolivia, went back as an anthropology student and wrote his master's thesis on why a whole Bolivian village up and converted to Mormonism. Turns out that it wasn't so much because they believed in Mormon doctrine, but because they got tangible social and pecuniary benefits out of it. As Mormons, they no longer participated in the Catholic feast day system, which required purchases of large amounts of alcohol with scarce cash monies, thus putting more money in their own pockets. Plus, the Mormon church built them a chapel and bought sewing machines for the women in the village. There's more to it, obviously, but I remember how terribly shocked I was reading it all these years ago.

ETA: He wrote his dissertation on how a group of Baptists managed to survive and thrive in a city dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where previous attempts to set up an indigenous group of Baptists failed.

When I was trying to see if I had any kind of opportunity with one organization and went on a few trips with them, they had a well designed system for setting up a make-shift clinic. It was a well-oiled machine, complete with PVC pipe and what was like bedsheet material used to make exam areas. And they had forms for keeping statistics. Three days before the end of the three week trip, I dug a guy's tooth out that was growing something funky. In the 105 degree muggy tropical no breeze building on top of that smell, I almost passed out and had to go vomit in that toilet/hole in the ground. Since it was near the end of the trip and the girl they assigned to do statistics didn't do them very well, I spent those last three days figuring out how many and "who got saved" for the people in the church to follow up with. We had a rate of 98% which was probably not 100%. And people "converted" early in the process, because if they didn't, they'd hear the message over and over again until they prayed the iconic prayer. It was payment for services rendered, essentially.

On another trip I went on in the Caribbean after Hurricane Hugo, I worked in the pharmacy, teaching people about how to take their meds and could communicate freely. If I remember correctly, we saw 400 people a day on the first few days. That population was not as agreeable, but people still felt pressured to pray the prayer... And you know how many people I think "converted"? I encountered two different elderly people who were really affected, and I think that the rest of everyone else just felt obligated.

Do I think that we had a 98% "saved" rate? I bet it was more like 2%. If that many people did change their religion or denomination, the churches could not hold them all. But it was a rewarding process from which needy people really benefited, and again, I think that I was most useful as a source of encouragement to the people who attended the churches there who I just loved and loved.

Perhaps the coolest thing was the eye glasses we gave out on a few of the trips I was on, and people who could barely see received a brand new pair of glasses. That was amazing, really, to see those instantaneous changes in the person.